


moon tattoo

by aosc



Series: The Lilac Hour [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-07 18:03:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11628954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aosc/pseuds/aosc
Summary: Noct — he’s taut, looking like he’s waiting on tenterhooks, shoulders drawn like a bowstring, ready to spring.Prompto takes an involuntary breath. At the sight, or for his own sake, he’s not sure. Being a prince’s soulmate, he’s realized, was never going to be an easy ride. But, he thinks, staring at the tilt of Noct's mouth, at his worried-bruised eyes —He never wanted easy. Not for a damn second.





	moon tattoo

**Author's Note:**

> this ‘verse, quite obviously, won’t quit me. or i won’t quit it.
> 
> a little slice of life set circa a year post- _your ribcage as a pillow_. it’s not necessary to read it to understand this, but it adds to the story.
> 
> tracks:
> 
> comfortable — lauv  
> can’t do without you — caribou  
> a la lumière des diamants — M83

* * *

  
Noct grimaces.

 

It’s the closest he’ll come to an outright grimace, anyway — there’s a darkening of expression, the slope of his mouth turning into a moue of worry. His eyebrows knot, and his shoulders straighten out. He runs his hands down the length of his forearm, if it’s _really_ bad.

 

Right now, it’s really bad. Not like Prompto couldn’t already tell as much.

 

Noct’s lips are pursed thinly. He’s absently massaging the knob of bone protruding on his wrist. He works his way upwards: two fingers pinching on where Prompto knows the scar warps around his arm. He’s erect, standing almost at attention.

 

“I wasn’t saying — “ he says, halting midway. He changes his mind, “We don’t have to do this right now. That’s — it’s fine. We’re not even twenty. That wasn’t what I meant.”

 

Prompto tugs a hand through the hair that’s curled with sweat at the nape of his neck. Gross. He leans forward onto Noct’s kitchen island. He’s not at all sure of how to say this. Prompto feels like a goddamn stranger, standing across from him, two yards but a damn mile’s worth of distance between them. It’s _only_ the kitchen island, but it feels like they’ve got the Cygillan Ocean between them. Nineteen years of different upbringings and some few royal traditions, who’s Prompto to keep track.

 

He doesn’t, is the thing. He’s long since sunk into the rote of thinking of Noct as Noct, the friend, rather than the faraway, bleak recollection of him as Noct, the Crown Prince of Our Great Nation. And even when — even as they developed into something else, well, it wasn’t like Prompto began thinking of him as Noct, the Crown Prince of Our Great Nation who needs to heed royal traditions.

 

Noct — just Noct, his best friend, the goddamned _love_ of his _life_ — he’s taut, looking like he’s waiting on tenterhooks, shoulders drawn like a bowstring, ready to spring.

 

Prompto takes an involuntary breath. At the sight, or for his own sake, he’s not sure. Being a prince’s soulmate, he’s realized, was never going to be an easy ride.

 

He rights himself. His running shorts are sticking to the upper of his thighs, his tank top to his spine.

 

His thoughts spin a hundred miles an hour, scraping away at the inside of his skull. The crux of it is: it’s not a difficult choice to make — Noct, is not a difficult choice to make. By the order of natural selection he isn’t Prompto’s choice to make in the first place. But here they are, strangely bound to each other by the ways of gods and fates, so why’s this something he’s even bothered wasting his time away on debating with himself?

 

Being a prince’s soulmate was never going to be an easy ride. He gets that. Really does. They’ll be breaking traditions, a dozen and a half social presets, as well as probably bending the royal succession until it snaps.

 

But, he thinks, staring at the tilt of Noct’s mouth, at his worried-bruised eyes —

 

He never wanted easy. Not for a damn second. No matter his thoughts this morning. No matter Noct’s apparent hesitance. 

 

“I don’t care,” says Prompto. He looks at Noct, still at three arms’ pace. One of his eyebrows rise, despite himself, Prompto thinks.

 

“You don’t care?”

 

“I don’t,” he replies, “Or I mean, I do. Course I do. I want this. You. Whatever comes with it.”

 

“Prom, I — “ Noct hesitates, “You don’t know that. I was unfair, springing that on you. It’s not like — telling a handful of people and we’re done with it.”

 

Prompto knows that. He’s had a couple of hours to stew on it. “I’m — pretty aware.” He chuckles a little, “You don’t have to be soulmates to be featured hung over, out hunting a greasy burger on page 34 of the DI.”

 

“It’s not going to be the same thing,” says Noct, stubborn. He’s leaned out a little, stands less hunched. Prompto opens his mouth, but Noct shakes his head, “No,” he says, cutting him off, “It really isn’t going to be the same thing. It’s — it’s gonna be hard. People aren’t nice. There’s going to be — opinions, and paparazzi, probably hate. It’s ugly. I don’t want to push you head first into something like that.”

 

“You deal with it every day,” Prompto points out.

 

“Because I have to.” Noct’s smile is small, and almost painfully pressurized, “You don’t.”

 

It’s been a year. Scarcely, eleven months and then some, since Noct wandered into his living room and watched Prompto unlace his wrist band, spotted the soul mark nestled into his barcode etchings. He always wears it, despite the fact that Noct says he doesn’t care about what the remainder of the tattoo implicates. Iggy and Gladio don’t know. Nobody knows. He wants for it to stay that way.

 

He unlaces it. Two straps, leather rounded, color deepened with patina, and allows it to drop onto the counter.

 

It still muddles the contents of his gut, seeing it starch and real and displayed for someone but himself. Seeing it, even if it is just himself. He’ll never accept it as a part of himself, he doesn’t think. Doesn’t think he can.

 

Not a part of it but the black, ornate _N_ that stands, ridiculously enough, for Noctis.

 

He turns his wrist a little upwards. It’s not enough to shove the point in Noct’s face, but it’s enough to implicate as much. “I think I do, Noct. As much as you do.”

 

Noct purses his lips.

 

“You can’t make a decision like that for me,” continues Prompto. “I get it. Believe me, I’ve thought the same thing. Hundreds of times. What’re they gonna think, who am I, you know? I’m — not prince consort material. I think that’s what it’s called?” He ducks his head, but maintains eye contact with Noct, “I tried looking it up.”

 

“You — looked it up. Of course you did.”

 

Prompto sees it, maybe even before Noct realizes he does it. There’s a minute twitch in his mouth that says he’s having a hard time not smiling.

 

He shrugs. “Yeah, you know. Could get my own title and all. That’s pretty badass.”

 

Noct’s grimace is slowly cracking, bits and pieces of worry, and the fatigue that accompanies it, peeling. “It _is_ pretty badass,” he says, “I mean, you’re stuck with me after that. It’s — pretty permanent. I guess.”

 

Prompto hates the uncertainty that swallows all of Noct’s natural easiness. Something that chokes him down on occasion; makes him withdraw into himself.

 

He rounds the kitchen island. He’s still sweaty from his earlier run, drying and cooling, but warm in the dip of his back, on his neck.

 

Noct meets him halfway. A cadence that has almost turned into rote, something that requires less thought than it does gravity, pulling them together.

 

Noct’s hands almost absently find themselves pushing up Prompto’s tank, scuffing the fabric until his cool, dry palms massage his lower back. He’s looking at a spot below Prompto’s collar.

 

Prompto doesn’t suppress the shiver that wells up in him and across him. He bows his head a little instead. A slope of curls flop down over his forehead. Noct’s breath, filling the space between them, is a little minty.

 

“You’re just gonna have to trust me on this one, buddy. I don’t know how to convince you, or whatever. I don’t think I can.”

 

Noct’s fingers, blunt nails trail maps into Prompto’s skin. He looks up beneath the starch dust of his dark eyelashes. His mouth quirks. “Are you saying I’m unreasonable?”

 

“I dunno,” shrugs Prompto, “Am I allowed to say that to a prince?”

 

“As the prince’s consort, you could, I guess.”

 

Noct’s smile grows a little wider. A little truer. Something bubbles up in Prompto at the sight of it, something nonsensical but relieved. His own hands, bunched in Noct’s black flak jacket, still hanging off of one of his shoulders, cease worrying the fabric quite as much. “Yeah?” he says.

 

“Yeah,” says Noct.

 

*  
  


**Author's Note:**

> im sO SAPPY
> 
> but not even minutely sorry about this happening
> 
> i am, as always, on [twitter](http://twitter.com/ddelline). tell me what you thought, yell at me about fandom in general, or just say hi. on a fic-related note: updates are a-coming for both _dark matter_ and _stillness in woe_. i needed to get my writing mojo back after an insanely hectic work period, and this and some other stuff are slowly making that happen. i want the updates to be up to standard, which is why i’m not forcing anything.
> 
> on another note: i’m on the lookout for a beta. my last one is out of fandom now, for the most part, and i don’t want to bother her with stuff she doesn’t know, so i thought i’d throw it out here. since i’m not a native speaker, i need someone to nitpick grammatical errors, spot me on nasty habits, and then just generally shout about fandom bc _it is imperative to the fic writing exercise._
> 
> know anyone, or think you’d like to help a girl out? holler at me @ twitter, or per email, which can be found in my profile.


End file.
